Just to prove they really wanted information, guards at Guantanamo Bay reportedly “on one occasion flushed a copy of Islam’s most holy book ‘down the toilet,'” with the result that “a number of Arab prisoners had still not spoken to their investigators after three years to protest at the desecration of the Koran by guards.” Newsweek is cited by two other sources for this report. According to Reuters:
Newsweek magazine, in its latest edition, quoted sources as saying that investigators probing abuses at the military prison had discovered that interrogators “had placed Korans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet”.
A high-profile member of the Pakistani parliament said, “This war on terrorism is self-defeating if, on the one hand, you are demanding that we help them (the United States) and, on the other hand, they are desecrating the book on which our entire faith is based. The entire world knows that; even the Americans know how sacred that book is.” Pakistan, of course, is a “front line state” in the Bush Administration’s “war on terrorism,” at least to the extent it really cares about apprehending Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, or about defeating the Taliban.
But this never has been about winning the “hearts and minds” of Muslims, has it?